


Kill Shot

by storiesfortravellers



Category: Revenge (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dark!Nolan, F/M, Gen, Gen or Het, Killer!Emily
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-06
Updated: 2014-04-06
Packaged: 2018-01-18 10:44:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1425619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/storiesfortravellers/pseuds/storiesfortravellers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For comment-fic on lj for the prompt: "AU where Nolan tries to encourage rather than discourage her worst and most dangerous/potentially lethal qualities"</p><p>Can be read as gen or het.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kill Shot

Nolan looked over to see Emily sleeping, her body sprawled across the floor. Someone who didn't know her might not even realize that even like this, she could attack in a fraction of a second.

Nolan smiled, even as his back practically creaked from the night on the hard floor. They were staying in empty vacation homes for the moment, lying low while not wanting to move too far away from their targets. They would break in, but Emily was too paranoid to let them sleep in a carpeted bedroom - too easy to sneak in.

It had been a year since Conrad and Victoria died. Daniel, after, had become obsessed with avenging them, often targeting the wrong person (Jack, Amanda), and so Emily had him framed for embezzlement and imprisoned. Others weren't so lucky; Nolan watched as those who had harmed David Clarke fell in gruesome ways, as one by one, their faces yielded to the red "X" that Emily would place on their photographs after a successful 'mission.'

Emily's methods had also generated enough fear to make people talk, even about the Initiative. She went through them like a blade, blackmailing them into naming their higher ups and then adding them to her list of successfully dispatched. She had attracted enough attention that they had to stay off the radar, at least until Emily made a decision. Thus, the sleeping on the floor of absentee vacationers' homes.

Generally, Nolan told himself that he was just along for the ride. Just being a good friend to his mentor and now his mentor's daughter. 

Still, sometimes Nolan wondered if he could have done better. If his rage, still seething, hadn't shaped their friendship in ways that David wouldn't be entirely pleased with. If a better friend might not have seen her as a weapon to be honed, a tool to avenge the only man who had ever truly had faith in Nolan.

There had only been a few moments when Emily wavered, when Nolan's opinion seemed to matter at all. He thought back to them, to what he had said.

 _"Think of all the lives you would save if Conrad were dead."_ "

 _""Victoria would kill you if she knew who you were."_ "

 _""They didn't hesitate to kill your father. Why should you hesitate to kill them?"_ "

 _""Leaving them alive will just endanger Amanda and Charlotte."_ "

 _""The world would be better off without this person. This is a good deed."_ "

 _""It's easy to pity them, sure. But do you pity them more than you love your father?"_ "

Nolan had regrets, of course. Things he wondered about. But she was good at this, in ways that Nolan would never have the stomach for on his own, and her targets always deserved what they got. 

He watched as Emily's eyelids fluttered open. She looked around warily, then saw Nolan and smiled.

"Morning, sunshine," he said.

She snorted at the word. "Seriously?"

"Morning, angel," he amended, and at her raised eyebrow, clarified, "Avenging angel."

She rolled her eyes and sighed, still exhausted. 

"Speaking of," she finally said, "The offer."

It turned out that there was a group even higher than the Initiative. And they had assumed that Emily had been cutting through their ranks to take over. The group had been suitably impressed with her ruthlessness and skill, apparently.

"It would give me the opportunity to take out people I'd never even know existed otherwise," she mused.

"But it could take years. Or decades. And these people are a whole new league of dangerous," Nolan said.

She looked at him. "I would be careful."

"Right."

She was staring at him, uncertain. She was used to finding easy affirmation when she asked. Nolan considered for a moment if he had really been encouraging her for all this time as a gift to David, or as a gift to her.

"I think I want this, Nolan," she said again. "Imagine the things I could do to those in power with this kind of position."

Nolan paused. "Your father told me something once. About the day you were born. He said that on that day, he knew that he wanted you to have everything." _Life, marriage, children, happiness. Safety, love, peace._ "He wanted to make sure nothing would ever stand in the way of your talents."

Emily smiled at him. "Nothing will."


End file.
